2009-09-14

My name is Alex M. Hendler. I am an attorney from the U.S. I own and run a small company called ontolawgy™ LLC. My company's goal is to help make the law more accessible to attorneys and non-attorneys alike, using an internet-based computer system called the ontolawgy™ platform.

The ontolawgy™ platform is a semantic legal analysis system. What is semantic legal analysis? In a nutshell, it is what an attorney does in his or her head to analyze a legal issue; the ontolawgy™platform simply allows the coherent electronic storage and retrieval of the key elements of that analytical process and dynamic, customizable presentation of the results. So, why the reference to "connect the dots™"? Semantic legal analysis helps make legal research almost as straightforward as drawing a connect-the-dots picture on a placemat in your neighborhood family dining establishment or in one of your childhood coloring books.

As for this site, I plan to post bi-weekly (i.e., once every two weeks) thoughts on semantic legal analysis, health care reform, and the relationship between the two.

To set the stage a bit, in the U.S., there is increasing movement towards revamping about 16% (and growing) of our country’s economy through what is commonly called “health care reform”. A comprehensive approach to health care reform will likely include changes to federal tax, employee benefits, and Medicare and Medicaid law (four of the more complex legal regimes in the U.S.), as well as the possible creation of a new legal regime to govern a “public option”, “regional co-ops”, “health insurance exchanges”, or some other variant designed to increase access to health care insurance in the U.S., and possible reforms to the Social Security system and the various laws governing health care insurance plans available to civilian, military, and law enforcement federal employees.

Because of its necessary legal complexity (at least in the U.S.), health care reform provides a unique opportunity to explore semantic legal analysis, which I will do in part here, and in part on a deployment of the ontolawgy™ platform that will address health care reform once some solution is enacted into law.

For more information about me or the ontolawgy™ platform, please visit http://ontolawgy.com or come back in a couple of weeks for the first substantive installment.